The Case for the F-35 | Hacker News Reader

The Case for the F-35

navalgazing.net

54 pointscwillu133 comments

"There’s also criticism from the opposite direction, that we should be buying drones instead. I’ve largely said my piece on that earlier this year, but the short version is that in the areas where they are useful, unmanned systems have already taken over. We call them things like “cruise missiles” and “AAMs”."

I'm not an expert here but I've read claims that China, if it invades Taiwan, will use some combinations of missiles, drones, and drone-missile hybrids to destroy or render ineffective landing strips and maintenance fields necessary for effective manned fighter aircraft deployment. Yes, there are missile defenses, but they'll be overwhelmed by the sheer number of missiles and drones, and thus the F-35 will be a powerful fighter that can't be effectively deployed.

Edit to add: Carriers will suffer similar problems (sample: https://theaviationgeekclub.com/pentagon-war-games-reveal-th...) and be destroyed with hypersonic missile barrages.

Is this true? No one will really know until the moment, but it seems and sounds plausible.

"In any case, while the F-35 isn’t perfect, it’s clearly the best solution available for the threats the US and its allies face today."

Unless the real threats are from drones and missiles that cost anywhere from 1/10th to 1/100th to even less than an F-35, and thus can be produced in far greater quantities for a given outlay.

I'm the most ignorant man alive when it comes to war - but this is what I want to know.

Isn't sensor + tracking abilities far more advanced at shooting down planes than planes are at creating damage? And if that's the case, aren't hyper/sonic/long/range stuff better at evading defenses?

Seems like the next "war" will be LoL style to me.

Wars are won by convincing the opposing government and its citizens that they have been defeated and must surrender.

When there are a dozen F-35s flying patterns over your capital city, everyone has to admit defeat. Drones or missiles wouldn't have the same effect. For the desired effect, fighter jets must be big, loud, and expensive.

How many times has shock-and-awe actually compelled surrender? Especially when you exclude the instances where shock-and-awe wasn't preceded by a thorough evisceration of the defending military, which tends to understandably play a role in motivating people to surrender.

I realize that I might be illiterate on this topic, but I always thought the "shock" in "shock and awe" was the thorough evisceration of the defending army.

If I am incorrect in this thinking, I hope someone will give me a better understanding.

Serbia in 1999 comes to mind.

That may be true, but I wouldn’t underestimate the terror caused by 100000 armed drones hovering over houses and streets and bridges.

Jet airplanes are last millenium's weapon. You're more likely to make them laugh than surrender.

Considering equal capabilities, airborne missiles are, I believe, cheaper than their land based counterparts (the can be smaller as much of their energy comes from the aircraft), more mobile (easier to fly a plane a few hundred km that drive a massive truck) and harder to destroy ahead of time. Many "smart weapons" are basic "dumb bombs" plus a relatively cheap conversion kit that makes them glide to the right spot.

In Ukraine, I understand, much of the defence against Russian missiles pounding civilians is done from aircraft in the sky, not with rockets from the ground.

>In Ukraine, I understand, much of the defence against Russian missiles pounding civilians is done from aircraft in the sky, not with rockets from the ground.

Ground based systems still do majority of the work, although this might be for the acute lack of air force.

>more advanced at shooting down planes

One thing to consider is kill envelope / no escape is also function of manned fighters being restricted to manned limitations. An autonmous fighter that has bigger fuel tank than missiles (more flight envelope), better sensors to inform AI (due to larger airframe + power) that can can pull substantially more Gs than a human, can conceivable be much better at dodging missiles. To the point where it no longer becomes viable to shoot them down, both economically and tactically, i.e. cost more than UAV worth of missile to engage, and require so many missiles that it's easy to saturate defenses with handful of UAVs. A CSG can only dedicate so much space for air (VLS slots), if that DDG with ~100 cells with 30 reserved for anti air suddenly needs to move to 90, then it becomes useless for other missions. And if all ~100 cells isn't then UAVs in relatively small numbers can essentially operate uncontested. Implications being, such shift (which IMO tier1 US/PRC are pursuing) will massively benefit land based aviation that can mass deployment.

Unmanned aircraft aren't built for maneuver ability. Stop trying to turn everything into top gun.

Currently aren't, otherwise go tell the navy and airforce that. There's a reason programs exist to train AI to out gun topgun, because the current roadmap leads to large UAVs more performant than current manned fighters specifically because pushing beyond human flight envelops has capability merits.

For what it's worth, the US would field F35s from CVNs, not air strips. And repairing a bombed out airstrip for mil use takes about 48-72 hours.

Have you compared the range of the naval F35s to the stand off range needed to keep the CVNs floating? (it's not even close, & there aren't enough tankers to keep the F35s in the air as CAP. Single deep strike, maybe. But to hold off an invasion, you need to provide sustained air cover.)

The new aim-260 had a range of 120 miles. The combination of long range Air to Air missiles and stealth is very hard to defeat.

https://youtu.be/DRt2I39qU5U

Has an interesting simulation of a carrier battle between a Chinese naval group and an American naval group with expected 2025 equipment.

This is argument goes back at least 50 years. The F-14 and before that the F-111 didn’t need to be good dogfighters because the AIM 54 phoenix was a 100 mile missile and would kill anyhting before it got remotely close. That turned out to be false as we learned against Libyan fighters and as the Israelis could have told us (or anyone who served in Vietnam).

Fair, however modern sensor and control mechanics are much better than they were 50 years ago. If the media is to be believed, we're reaching the end of a fighters ability to defeat a missile through anything other than kinematics/stealth.

That's not really true. Have you considered stealth vs stealth engagements and BVR kinematics?

As an aside missiles have always been evaded through kinematics. The F-35 doesn't have great kinematics. Those include the ability to maneuver, to do so while maintaining kinetic energy, and the ability to accelerate as well as maintain high altitudes and high velocities. None of which the F-35 is especially great at.

Chaff and flares were the main defeat mechanism into the 90s. In a BVR fight range is the main goal, there is no reason for a stealth jet to close within 15 miles as they would lose stealth.

Even in a seemingly missmatched dogfight between an f-16 and f-22… it’s still plausible for the f-16 to win (sometimes). If we need a dogfighter, then we should build a drone for the task.

There's a lot of investment in directed energy weapons again and talk about deployment on 6th generation fighter platforms (which are planned to be optionally manned). Promising but also defeated by cloud cover.

Against Taiwan? Why? Wouldn't they operate out of Okinawa? Maybe you'd bring some carriers into the area, but the air base already exists. Also it seems like the Chinese would stand an excellent chance of sinking carriers. I think they're one of the more fanciful and unlikely assets in a war of peers. They only really work against non-technological enemies like the Libyans.

Carriers as weapons really are technology for the previous century's war.

Carriers as mobile military bases are still very useful for projecting power.

That does not seem at all obvious to me. It's a big, slow, easy target. Yes you can use them to project power into, say, Sierra Leone, but not against China. None of the expensive and fragile missile defense systems have a demonstrated history of doing anything useful.

You can project power hundreds to thousands of miles forward of a land mass or established base by using a carrier. Even operating it in a very cautious manner affords a great deal of tactical advantage you would not otherwise have available.

The top speed of a US nuclear-powered carrier is secret, but it is known to be able to do 40 knots easily, which is not slow for a ship.

It's not a boat race. State-of-the-art anti-ship missiles may hit mach 5 in their terminal phase. Also a carrier that outruns its escort is an even softer target, and no other craft in a carrier group can keep up with the carrier's max speed.

Projecting power is about bringing weapons to places where you want to blow stuff up, not about necessarily having a frontline fortress. That's why US military bases are everywhere (and nearly unfortified).

An actual war with China will be a global affair. The aircraft carriers don't need to get in range of the missiles to bring airplanes, food, and hospitals to somewhere there is fighting. Practically, the bases in Japan are going to be the main hubs for forces fighting near China, not aircraft carriers.

Air bases don't move at all. From a tactical standpoint they're much less useful than a carrier that can stay out of the range of all but the most expensive missiles.

> Also it seems like the Chinese would stand an excellent chance of sinking carriers.

Only if they can't hide.

If the US disables Chinese satellites, then China will have to rely on air- and marine-based sensors.

Satellites will be the first thing to go. The wars of the future will have a heavy space component.

The Chinese have multiple geostationary orbit satellites with enough resolution to target a carrier. Meaning that by the time the missile reaches the orbit of the satellite (around 5 hours), the Chinese would have had the time to track and sink a carrier about 14 times over.

On top of that they also have a fleet of unmanned submarines and an unmanned supersonic observation drone program as well as a sonarphone network.

Beyond this the carriers are so slow and the missiles so fast that assuming they fire the missiles within a few minutes of their satellites being shot down, the carrier is still unlikely to avoid the missiles target acquisition zone.

Even the idea that the U.S. could promptly launch a kinetic weapon into geostationary orbit is a bit fanciful.

the kinetic weapons are almost certainly already in geo

It's often less efficient and slower to hit a target in GEO from GEO than from the ground

There are presumably countermeasures already within striking distance from adversarial satellites. Kinetic, laser, radio jamming, clandestinely placed surface mines...

The DoD has been thinking of space warfare since the 60's. The space shuttle program was built for defense purposes. Now they have X planes to carry out these missions, and they're continually launching classified payloads.

Space warfare is hard. You can't easily hide anything, so keeping a weapon very close is not feasible. Lasers don't work very well either because if the heat is enough to overheat the other satellite it's probably enough to overheat yourself. Jamming doesn't work very well in the age of super directional communications (see: SpaceX in Ukraine, which is not even designed to withstand jamming).

Deemed not survivable. Hence US trying to get JP to do distributed basing across islands (ACE /agile combat employment), but for obvious reasons, JP is reluctant.

My understanding is that the US is getting kicked out of Okinawa because of sex crimes over a long period of time. Guam would be the next closest airfield the US is guaranteed to fly out of.

And what's to keep the other side from lobbing another dozen missiles every 47 hours?

finite inventory of missiles?

Each 300+ mile range missile runs around 1-3 million dollars. Stealthier variants will be more expensive.

Those loitering ammo things from Iran that Russia uses reportedly cost around 35k each, and they have that range. Very easy to shoot down, but an air defense missile costs a lot more than the drone does.

And it's China, they are the world's manufacturing capacity, so just send hundreds at a time.

That is with power tools available. Destruction of nearby medic tents, storehouse, petrol can prevent the repair to Japanese WW2 manual level. That cant fix within 72 hrs. China has huge productivity vs Russia and USA combined. They are the one written Sun Tzu that is used in Westpoint. Taiwan is so near, once carriers are taken out, Guam will be massive bomb with napalm. SK and Japan will seat out because China can nuke them without repercussions. They know USA dont dare to nuke back because of the Kabul flee incident showing how weak American is when their citizen is unhappy. Plus Russia and Iran is on their back. India and Asean will be neutral. USA is pretty much isolated when the war begin. Of yeah, dedollarisation will be in full swing so USA cant touch much China economy without Walmart store running empty. Oil? Russia unlimited. Taiwan? Checkmate. As Chinese there...historically they will surrendar exactly like Ming Taiwan to Qing China. The chess set pieces had USA setup for failure before the opening gambit by Chinese-Putin-Iranian. Think about it, American cant beat Talebans for 20 years with sheer air supremacy, the chances against superpower China+Russia with unlimited oil gas and rare mineral resources plus world gold reserve, USA as according to Ray Dahlio, is declining just like no so great... Great Britain.

Making airstrips ineffective is much harder than it seems. Recall the US attack on the Syrian airbase a few years ago that did little lasting damage

Drones are slow. You can pick them up easily with a fighter jet, and in some cases even with attack helicopters.

The ones we use to spy on people and shoot small missiles are slow, but they are designed to stay in the air for a very long time. I assume they make drones today that are much faster (hypersonic missiles are very drone-like in some ways), we just don't know about them yet.

In which case they won't be cheap so you can't deploy myriads of them.

Parent's point is "how many of them can you pick up?" as they can overwhelm in number.

But they have a very small footprint, which makes them hard for radars and automated targeting systems.

And I doubt jets and helis can effectively eliminate hundreds of drones in a timely manner.

Drones can be very, very fast. it just depends on the design.

A drone is just an unmanned aircraft at its core. A drone could do maneuvers that would kill a pilot, kamikaze itself, or fly with only enough fuel for a one-way trip. It could have a jet engine, a rocket, or maybe both.

Designing for human pilots is really a huge limitation. Drones can be smaller, lighter, cheaper, and can have any engine the designer decides to put on them.

They’re the future of aerial combat for sure.

Fast, cheap, heavy ordnance. Pick two.

You can pick all three in three different drones

All three of those goals are served by removing the cockpit and everything that goes along with it.

Even if you remove the pilot you’d still need a big drone to load air to surface missiles capable of destroying an airfield. In which case, you’d also have to add a jet engine to make the thing capable of lifting the weight and be fast enough. And now you have a fuel issue, so you add even more size to be able to carry a few tones of jet fuel. Eventually you’ll end up with something as big as a fighter jet, in which case you can’t just develop thousands of them because the cost will already be too high.

High is relative. Remove multiple pilots that cost 10M+ over course of life of air frame. Adopt hi-lo mix of master UAVs with full sensor suits mesh with simplified bomb truck units. Cutting out manned training will also dramatically reduce operation/maintenance costs, you don't need to waste 1000s of hours per air frame on training, just store the drones in a warehouse and "spin their tires" every once in a while. Hardware costs also goes down when most of fleet aren't optimized for service life. It's not 100:1 ratio, something like 3:1 can dramatically enhance capabilities.

Okay but now they can't do anything nrclark said.

Loyal Wingman specifically intends to do all that, remove pilot and associated operation overheads with lower cost MQ28s as force multiplier to support/augment expensive manned overseer. Next potential step is to make overseer unmanned as well.

Weight of human and controls is way overstated.

All these weapon systems are available to Russia and they were unable to disable Ukrainian air power this way.

Decommissioning hardened airfields is a hard task. The fighters sit in bunkers along with everything else if note. The bunkers are cheap to replace and are simple concrete structures.

The runway is ultimately a piece of flattened ground. It’s only a question of bulldozer size for how long it takes to fill craters and patch the runway.

There are also semi-public examples of extremely hardened runways such as the Swiss underground airbases.

Many of those airbases are located nearby motorways and most Swiss fighters can use them as emergency runway.

If the bunkers are destroyed in a sneak attack with the fighters still in them, it won’t matter if the bunkers can be replaced, the fighters are toast.

It's really hard to launch a sneak attack from 300+ miles away through heavily defended air space. Satellites would detect any troop buildup long before the war starts.

Depends on capability of attackers. Even medium range hypersonics strikes = minutes of warning. Coordinating a bunch of TEL launchers to pop out of their cave for quick launch = maybe an hour to determine whether movement is training exercise or real deal, likely not enough time to conduct analysis communicated up/down command chain to get units to disperse/bunker in time.

Possible, but the bigger question would be what’s the follow-up? If you don’t have hundreds of thousands of troops ready to invade - why do a massive and expensive conventional first strike? A thousand hypersonics won’t win the war.

Depends on goal of war, whether war of aggression or conquest. If conquest, yes there's need to follow up with invasion, of which mobilization can be done after preemption. If aggression, i.e. goal is to merely want to cripple a place without occupation, a thousand hypersonics can easily bring a society to it's knees. If RU wanted a broken buffer state, they could have gone 100% on destroying critical UKR infra at the outset. Islands with high import dependency even worse off, destroy a few energy terminals and powerplants and carrying capacity reverts to baseline agrarian society levels of subsistence and sustainablity. In peer warfare, 1000 hypersonics especially global precision strike can dismantal adversaries major power projection platforms that can't easily be replaced. It's not going to end a war with a tenancious adversary but it can dramatically shape outcomes. An often cited reason for why US/PRC rivary is particularly dangerous to preemption is that much of the fighting will be maritime, where each side is incentivized to fire first to improve ratio of irreplaceable assets, and such advantage tend to compound. The more side A outnumbers B, the less remenants of B is able to defend against numberically superior A.

There's a 4 part series on navalgazing on Why the Carriers Are Not Doomed (https://www.navalgazing.net/Carrier-Doom-Part-1)

Not bad series at the time and still relevant to non peer "enemistan" powers, but 4 years is long time with respect to PRC military modernization - and there's a reason the series correctly distinguishes between generic Enemistan mid/low tier powers and PRC even back then. In the last 4 years PRC has (according to each part of the series):

1) launched ~200 Yaogan/Gaofen/Jilin remote sensing satellites to have established near persistent coverage of PRC's backyard and beyond.

2) increased ability to generate fires and saturate CSG defenses, which even in 2018 author admits was sufficient to overwhelm single CSG. Also apart from relying on lol CMO "simulation", Part2 extrapolates interception rate of garbage tier Yemen ordnances (basic subsonic "cruise" missiles) without mentioning of much more performant PRC AShM hardware like YJ12 that travels at mach 2+ and evades on approach.

3) PRC successfully demonstrated coordinated DF21 & DF26 tests that hit moving target on water. Interestingly, this part of article seems to be updated with the 2020 tests but failed to mention it succeeded (initially confirmed, then retracted, then confirmed again by US last year). Meanwhile recent SM6 test (FTM33) shot down 1 of 2 short range ballistic missiles with 4 interceptors in what's described as "most complex" test so far, but "most complex" hasn't hinted at dealing with anything like counter measures. Reality is, missile defense also haven't been seriously stress tested. They could work as advertised or be another Patriot/Scud debacle. Also IMO poorly misread indicators that PRC is favoring carrier projection, development last few years (and really before) suggested coastal aviation/rocketforce doing most of anti-carrier activity. With better capabilities like YJ21 being revealed in Zhuhai this year. The part on programmed evasion is questionable too, like missiles dodge to the point of missing target when hitting targets with hypersonic shrapnel is part of the charm.

4) This part holds up alright only in that it doesn't make strong predictions, and PRC subs has been historically terrible until recent hints at mass producing new model due to shipyard expansions that suggest something mature is in the pipeline.

Are CSGs doomed? Still impossible to say without shooting war, but most factors that author thought PRC had a chance of overcoming has been seemingly overcame (at scale) in the last few years. Also no one is seriously discussing PRC systems confrontation/destruction doctrine that will focus on taking out weak links like resupply and sustainment ships which can render carrier groups useless, or increasing possiblity of global strikes that will take out carriers/support ships when they eventually dock in port. IMO that's the "low"ish hanging fruit that dooms not just carriers, but US willingness to project power at all since it makes CONUS vunerable and can be proliferated (likely via PRC exports) to and be made operational by enemistan powers who can't manage airforce but can a rocketforce.

Not an expert here either, but shouldn’t a weapon be considered in the context of a broader weapon system? And isn’t that entire system the result of the intended strategy and tactical reality?

Like, my understanding is that this thing is intended for asymmetrical, clandestine cold-war type of use. Not for WW2 scale confrontation with territorial gain objectives.

Air superiority fighters are currently not at risk of being shot down by drone systems. Strategic airfields and carriers have surface to air countermeasures.

All known systems are at risk of saturation attacks but they are wasteful methods of attack (especially if your opponent is on high alert).

I think you're underestimating how scary the E2 and E2D AWACS are in conjunction with the defensive countermeasures a carrier has at their disposal.

Everyone lies about how amazing their weapons are, but the CIWS and the E2D are old, well known, and very scary defensive systems.

Truly what's most scary about China's military right now is their advanced linked radar networks. They, presumably, can render stealth technology useless in some core areas - thus denying the core features of the F35 and F22 craft.

(Also remember the US has a base in Guam and a shitload of in-air tankers - over 500)

For me the F-35 story is similar to the Bradley fighting vehicle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Fighting_Vehicle). The same initial corruption during design and developments, the same problems at beginning of deployment, which even culminated with Hollywood to mock Pentagon in the movie "The Pentagon Wars" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144550/). Only to end-up with a work horse that was very much appreciated during Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.

F-35 it seems that is at that point in its story where the bad is behind and the value it brings to the table just started to unfold. As a member of a NATO country, that is in close proximity of Russia, I'd rather have some of them F-35 stationed in my US military bases that we house on our territory.

I buy it. Fourth gen is very old. We've been putting lipstick on this pig for a while (updated bombs, missiles, radars etc). Procurement is a mess and corrupt. Unfortunately, these sorts of things are at the top end of production chains, so it's tough to disrupt.

It takes too long, and too much money to replace and upgrade fighters and weapons. It's not a technical problem, but a political one.

>these sorts of things are at the top end of production chains

could you expand on this?

As a civilization, we build things in tiers. Tools to build other tools to build other tools. (And it's a bit circular too) And materials. So, you might have at the bottom things like extracting ore, fossil fuels, plant matter etc. Then you might turn that into crude grades of iron, separate various hydrocarbon chains out. Then you might refine that into steel of a certain grade, or industrial lubricant. Machines you build with that are used to make other machines. Maybe one of those mills a part, that's used in another machine. Etc.

Some things, like jet engine turbine blades, are at the end of very long chains. Also, it's a complex engineering problem because lots of different systems need to be made to work together, reliably, under high temperatures, pressures etc. Different specialists need to agree on how to make their components work together.

So, I can't just get together with my buddies, get some funding, and disrupt the industry. (For that and other reasons). Or maybe you could, but it would be tougher than doing so in most other industries.

Have people not been watching all the combat footage coming out of Ukraine? The future of combat isn’t in drones or unmanned aircraft even though Ukraine has been effective in the war with them. But end of the day war is about coordination and communication. Watching Ukrainian coordination between ground troops and artillery, or watching commanders use 1000 dollar commercial planes to watch a battlefield play out and redirect artillery has been such a stark difference in comparison to the Russians. air superiority is still somewhat in Russia’s favor and if they had a plane near even half of the f-35’s capabilities they would have a lot more success in taking out key Ukrainian weapons and command. Meanwhile they’re flying their su-57’s with unguided ordinances with no communication with ground or naval troops leading to disastrous results.

Complete lack of any modern SEAD capabilities from russia has been a surprise.

They aren't flying Su-57 though, just like they are not using Armata. Very little additional capability and high risk of losing morale when inevitably they lose one.

Ah yea my bad su-37 not 57

Su-30/34/35 are modified versions descending from the Su-27 fuselage. Just like Hornet and Super Hornet, or F-15 and F-15E.

To me, one thing that we should consider is that the F-35 was developed at a time when it wasn't really clear what the purpose and enemy is going to be - but the US couldn't afford to wait until that becomes clear.

Prior to F-35, it was fairly simple: Warsaw Pact and proxy wars. But for the JSF, its beginnings are around/just after the end of the Cold War. It was maybe not quite aimed at Russia (but who knows). Then the Afghanistan and Iraq wars come around, plus air interventions in Libya and Syria, which were quite unique in how uncontested the US air power was.

Re-rise of Russian aggression in NATO sphere of interest and the rise of China are really last 10 years or so.

I'm sure my view is naive, and people who do this for a living had a clearer vision of what the F-35 had to contend with, but it's not easy to design a weapon that's effective against everything that's also kind of unknown.

For example, it now appears like Russian military hardware is much worse than advertised and the real adversary in terms of technological sophistication is China. But how clear was it throughout this programme? Maybe some other design would have been more cost-effective against China in particular.

Similarly, it may yet turn out that the design assumption are right. Recent war in Ukraine changed a lot of assumptions, for example about anti air defences. These had become kind of obsolete in NATOs views and largely dismantled without replacement, under the assumption that fighter jets will be better suited to that. Now, it seems, all NATO members are buying whatever is available in that space.

> Re-rise of Russian aggression in NATO sphere of interest and the rise of China are really last 10 years or so.

(1) USA has illegaly bombed and subsequent occupied Afghanistan, Iraq, part of Serbia ("Kosovo"), part of Syria - countries which are so far from the US, most US citizens wouldn't be able to find them on a map.

(2) Ukraine, on the other hand, is at Russian doorstep. Both are Slavs, most of them are Christian-Orthodox and many have family ties with each other. And NATO is expanding towards Russia even thou Western politicians have promised to not expand it "an inch towards East".

(3) US has risen after WWII. Now China, Russia, Iran, India... are rising. Why is that a problem? Or, maybe, you think that the US must remain the Hegemon while the Rest serves as a resource to be plundered and enslaved.

> (2) Ukraine, on the other hand, is at Russian doorstep. Both are Slavs, most of them are Christian-Orthodox and many have family ties with each other.

So you’re telling me it’s okay to commit war crimes, genocide and forcibly invade a country as long as they are your neighbour?.

And NATO is expanding towards Russia even thou Western politicians have promised to not expand it "an inch towards East".

This never happened and even if it did it doesn’t give Russia the right to invade Ukraine, rape its people and commit genocide and war crimes with impunity.

Russian trolls can't comprehend that their point that their pro-war crimes and pro-imperialist views completely explain that every other neighboring country that is not already russian vassal state or china wants to be in strong military alliance like NATO.

The US and the rest of the West uses Ukrainians as cheap/disposable peons in a war against Russia. Even before February 24th, Ukrainians have lost their country to western interests. Today, Zelensky (who is not a Slav) sells the last bits and pieces to Americans for pennies on the dollar.

They have done the same in the nineties to former Yugoslavia. Almost all of us are Slavs, we mostly speak the same language, many of us have the same surnames. But, through "divide and conquer" the West (led by the US) has unleashed bloody wars. As the Serbs are the biggest group in former Yugoslavia the West has used todays Croats (Roman-Catholics) and Boshniaks (Muslims) as their peons to fight us. They cynically apply the same tactic today, using Ukrainians and Poles to fight Russians - but always for western interests.

Keep in mind: Slavs are the biggest ethnic group in Europe (over 300 million). Our languages are very similar, our worldview as well as our mentality. If we'd be together in some kind of confederation, the West would have a very strong competition. And an obstacle on the way to cheap resources (humans, commodities).

You must read about Heartland Theory [0] which was summarized by its author as follows: "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world."

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_Hi...

ADDEDENDUM: I forgot this, highly relevant for the previously said, quote regarding the NATO (you wrote "strong military alliance like NATO"). NATO's first Secretary General has said that the NATO was created to "keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." [1]

[1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_137930.htm

> The US and the rest of the West uses Ukrainians as cheap/disposable peons in a war against Russia. Even before February 24th, Ukrainians have lost their country to western interests. Today, Zelensky (who is not a Slav) sells the last bits and pieces to Americans for pennies on the dollar.

The Russians literally invaded, the Russians are the ones who are solely responsible for this war.

> ADDEDENDUM: I forgot this, highly relevant for the previously said, quote regarding the NATO (you wrote "strong military alliance like NATO"). NATO's first Secretary General has said that the NATO was created to "keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." [1]

whats totally relevant is the era that, that quote was said in.

NATO was formed in 1949, a mere 5 years after the end of WW2.

Given how Nazi Germany and the USSR had a alliance at the start of WW2, it is wholly unsurprising that NATO, was looking to keep both of them at bay.

You keep throwing around the same mantra (“Russians literally invaded”, “Russians are solely responsible for this war”) while my fingertips are blue from typing walls of text, arguing with facts (from Western sources). Again: The West (led by the US) has provoked this war between Russia and Ukraine - by breaking promises and propping up Ukraine to provoke Russia.

Contrary to your argument, that quote is still relevant today. Perfect example is the recent sabotage of NorthStream 1 and 2. Because it is still down Germany has to keep its mouth shut (while it loses its competitive advantage due to cheap energy from Russia), it keeps Russia out of Europe (mainly energy, but commodities, as well) and it keeps the US still in Europe (EUnuchs must buy natural gas from the US).

> You keep throwing around the same mantra (“Russians literally invaded”, “Russians are solely responsible for this war”) while my fingertips are blue from typing walls of text, arguing with facts (from Western sources).

You can type walls and walls of text if you want, but its plainly obvious that you are trying to push a narrative, all of your "facts" have a very curious pro Russian bent to them.

> Again: The West (led by the US) has provoked this war between Russia and Ukraine - by breaking promises and propping up Ukraine to provoke Russia.

There was never a broken promise, as I showed to you, straight from the president of the soviet unions mouth.

This promise never existed

> Contrary to your argument, that quote is still relevant today. Perfect example is the recent sabotage of NorthStream 1 and 2. Because it is still down Germany has to keep its mouth shut (while it loses its competitive advantage due to cheap energy from Russia), it keeps Russia out of Europe (mainly energy, but commodities, as well) and it keeps the US still in Europe (EUnuchs must buy natural gas from the US).

NS1 and 2 were sabotaged by Russia, as both a message and a means to get out of the billions in dollars of fines that they owe to a number of countries in the EU.

As a Pole:

>Even before February 24th, Ukrainians have lost their country to western interests.

No, they gained their own country from hands of pro-russian traitors.

>using Ukrainians and Poles to fight Russians - but always for western interests

Poland has never been better as under those "western interests". Turns out democracy and regulated free market brings the best of people.

>As the Serbs are the biggest group in former Yugoslavia the West has used todays Croats (Roman-Catholics) and Boshniaks (Muslims) as their peons to fight us.

Oh yes, Serbs are still butthurt that NATO did not let them commit genocide as UN did, as Serbia acted as mini-Russia today. NATO intervention there was the best use of force that saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Very happy that Poland participates in KFOR.

>Keep in mind: Slavs are the biggest ethnic group in Europe (over 300 million). Our languages are very similar, our worldview as well as our mentality. If we'd be together in some kind of confederation, the West would have a very strong competition. And an obstacle on the way to cheap resources (humans, commodities).

Keep in mind: this kind of bullshit has been used by russia for last two centuries to occupy and exploit us.

>ADDEDENDUM: I forgot this, highly relevant for the previously said, quote regarding the NATO (you wrote "strong military alliance like NATO"). NATO's first Secretary General has said that the NATO was created to "keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." [1]

Great goal for the 50s.

Ukraine has been in a downfall since the breakup of the USSR. But the real troubles started after the Maidan coup in 2014. Corruption, economic downfall acceleration, and political instability are all the result of puppet governments the West has installed there. “Russian traitors” are not even remotely responsible for anything. As I wrote to the other commenter: The West (led by the US) has provoked this war between Russia and Ukraine - by breaking promises and propping up Ukraine to provoke Russia.

If “Poland has never been better” then why is there a shortage of medical personnel, why is the inflation almost 20%, why does the EU commission strangles Poland and keeps its billions? (to name a few) You personally may think Poland is in the club of equals, in the club of solidarity (NATO, EU) but you personally seem to have learned nothing from history. Prior to WWII the British had promised help to Poland if Germans attacked it. And what has happened? They have kept drinking their tea while German tanks have rolled over Poland. And who has liberated Poland? Those bloody Russians! Today, the US will not lift a finger if (God forbid, God forbid) Russians and Poles start a war.

We Serbs are not butthurt. At the beginning of the nineties we didn’t understand why our former allies in two wars (US, GB, France) had stood by those who were on the German side in those two wars (Croats, Muslims, Albanians). Heck, in WWII, the Serbs have saved lives of the US pilots whose planes were shot down by the Germans, only to be bombed by their ancestors - twice in one decade [0]. But then, after some time, we have realized that all accusations are in over 90% of cases baseless and pure propaganda - and that the West is lying, cheating, deceiving us all the time. It was, again, a projection: The West has accused us (the Serbs) of expulsion, war crimes and genocide while their peons (Croats have expelled almost 200.000 Serbs in 1995 [1], Albanians have killed Serbs and have burned our churches and monasteries in 2004 [2]) have done that to us - with impunity and with the West behind them. The kangaroo court in the Hague has sentenced Serbs to over 1.000 years while everyone who has killed the Serbs was free to go.

Your other arguments I have answered in my other comments.

Aw, yes, one more thing: Are you really happy that Polish soldiers are protecting Albanians in Kosovo while they do this [3].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Halyard

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_unrest_in_Kosovo

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OstopJI9pck

>Ukraine has been in a downfall since the breakup of the USSR. But the real troubles started after the Maidan coup in 2014. Corruption, economic downfall acceleration, and political instability are all the result of puppet governments the West has installed there.

Exactly opposite. Russian target was to destroy country internally, so that even Putin would look like a good change. Since 2014 all of the corruption indicators and feelings have been steadily improving.

Also, we can see how the western funds and equipment are used with great effect: https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum...

It's heartwarming to see destroyed russian equipment.

>As I wrote to the other commenter: The West (led by the US) has provoked this war between Russia and Ukraine - by breaking promises and propping up Ukraine to provoke Russia.

First, nice that you acknowledge that "west" is working to uplift Ukraine. Second, the "provocation" thesis is so stupid and thoroughly debunked that

>Prior to WWII the British had promised help to Poland if Germans attacked it. And what has happened?

The strategy they've employed was shit, as was their pre-war preparation. At the end Brits and French has declared and fought Germans. The reason why they did not liberate Poland at the end was extremely high cost of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable

>And who has liberated Poland? Those bloody Russians!

Great job: occupy together first. Do some genocide on it's own. Then get rid of co-occupier and call that liberation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_military...

Just traded one chains to another. Until the soviet economic model finally blew up.

>If “Poland has never been better” then why is there a shortage of medical personnel

If you think there hasn't been a shortage ever then you're sorely mistaken. NFZ is shit but million times better than soviet medicine.

>why is the inflation almost 20%

When your body needs to get rid of bacteria and viruses, it raises it's temperature. We have to get rid ourselves of the russian dependency virus. It will take some time, but renewables and three new nuclear plants will do it's job.

>Today, the US will not lift a finger if (God forbid, God forbid) Russians and Poles start a war.

Yeah, that's why 10k USA troops are here. Also, Russia is losing war with Ukraine, introducing more and more 60s and 70s equipment. With which they want to fight our modern Leopards and F-16s? Get more T-62s from storage?

>why does the EU commission strangles Poland and keeps its billions?

What is this bullshit even? Strangling by giving us 150 billion euro over the years? https://mapadotacji.gov.pl/?lang=en

Polish roads, hospitals, railways, public transportation and million other things like waterworks have never been in a better state, partially thanks to EU money.

>We Serbs are not butthurt. At the beginning of the nineties we didn’t understand why our former allies in two wars (US, GB, France) had stood by those who were on the German side in those two wars (Croats, Muslims, Albanians). Heck, in WWII, the Serbs have saved lives of the US pilots whose planes were shot down by the Germans, only to be bombed by their ancestors - twice in one decade [0].

We've been a good guys so we can genocide our enemies and rule over their corpses, makes sense right?

>It was, again, a projection: The West has accused us (the Serbs) of expulsion, war crimes and genocide while their peons (Croats have expelled almost 200.000 Serbs in 1995 [1], Albanians have killed Serbs and have burned our churches and monasteries in 2004 [2]) have done that to us - with impunity and with the West behind them. The kangaroo court in the Hague has sentenced Serbs to over 1.000 years while everyone who has killed the Serbs was free to go.

Surely they haven't left because they were a perpetrators of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vukovar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Dubrovnik

Just like Germans after WW2, pure shock that they've lost territory after genocidal war. But Germans have come to their senses, I hope the Serbs will too.

>Are you really happy that Polish soldiers are protecting Albanians in Kosovo while they do this [3].

Very happy. We also did this with monuments to our torturers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nevsky_Cathedral,_Wa...

https://ipn.gov.pl/pl/aktualnosci/172714,Demontaz-czterech-p...

I admire your patience.

Your comment is a classical projection, so often seen in the West.

The US has invaded a neighboring country Mexico (Mexican–American War (1846–48)) and has stolen its territory (California). The US is a country that is founded on the genocide of the Natives and the subsequent landgrab. Today, the US sees the whole World as its backyard and uses a Hitler-esque construct of "exceptional nation" as an excuse to go into wars - directly or through proxies - against everyone. Including nuclear powers. By forcefully installing an US puppet government ("F_ck the EU'' phone call), building a huge military force in eight years and intending to use that force to expell millions of Russians, the US has provoked Russia leaving it no other choice but to start a conflict in its literal backyard.

So, what you accuse Russia of is a projection as the US and the rest of the West have done all that in the Americas, Africa, Asia. With impunity.

And the West did promise to Russia not to expand eastwards. German "Der Spiegel" has published an article [0] about it on 2022-02-18 but it is behind a paywall and all references to it are scrubbed by Google. There is an article about it at RT (Russia Today) [1] but to you it is most probably just "propaganda" even if it quotes "Der Spiegel". There is also a book tellingly called "Not One Inch" [2].

You may argue that breaking promises and agreements doesn't matter, but as we can see in Ukraine it leads to death and destruction.

[0] https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/nato-osterweiterung-aktenfund...

[1] https://www.rt.com/news/549921-nato-expansion-russia-documen...

[2] https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300268034/not-one-inch/\...*

> Your comment is a classical projection, so often seen in the West.

> The US has invaded a neighboring country Mexico (Mexican–American War (1846–48)) and has stolen its territory (California). The US is a country that is founded on the genocide of the Natives and the subsequent landgrab. Today, the US sees the whole World as its backyard and uses a Hitler-esque construct of "exceptional nation" as an excuse to go into wars - directly or through proxies - against everyone. Including nuclear powers. By forcefully installing an US puppet government ("F_ck the EU'' phone call), building a huge military force in eight years and intending to use that force to expell millions of Russians, the US has provoked Russia leaving it no other choice but to start a conflict in its literal backyard.

> So, what you accuse Russia of is a projection as the US and the rest of the West have done all that in the Americas, Africa, Asia. With impunity.

It's not projection, but your post sure has a lot of whataboutism. Unlike seemingly a lot of people who are pro Russian, I can hold the view that Russian war crimes in Ukraine are terrible and also that other countries have committed terrible crimes during wars.

None of that excuses Russias war crimes in Ukraine though.

> And the West did promise to Russia not to expand eastwards. German "Der Spiegel" has published an article [0] about it on 2022-02-18 but it is behind a paywall and all references to it are scrubbed by Google. There is an article about it at RT (Russia Today) [1] but to you it is most probably just "propaganda" even if it quotes "Der Spiegel". There is also a book tellingly called "Not One Inch" [2].

Your attempt to hide behind a paywalled article with literally 0 other evidence is an admirable effort, but unfortunately theres plenty of non paywalled articles on exactly why you're wrong.

The view of the president of the Soviet Union at the time would be the most authoritative source on the matter and here's a quote from exactly him.

'Gorbachev continued that “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years.” To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.'

> You may argue that breaking promises and agreements doesn't matter, but as we can see in Ukraine it leads to death and destruction.

So what are the consequences of Russia breaking the Budapest Memorandum, where Russia literally promised to.

1. Respect the signatory's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.

2. Refrain from the threat or the use of force against the signatory.

3. Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by the signatory of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.

5. Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used". Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against the signatory. Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments.[7][8]

[1]. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-...

[2]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

It's completely irrelevant to what I wrote and to the wider thread.

US/NATO needs the capacity to deliver, well, stuff that goes boom, regardless of whether it is a murderous regime, a peace-loving hippie or anything in-between. Its weapons procurement will look basically the same in either case.

I could argue about what you wrote but as I consider it OT, I won't.

The biggest case for the F-35 is that it uses state of the art US electronics. As the war in Ukraine has shown, while Russian planes might have decent airframes (even the Ukrainians are using them to good measure), it's the gap in technology that's the real trump card for the US and west in general (Ukrainian MiGs are also punching above their weight as they were upgraded rather recently). NASAMs for example been very effective and have taken out state of the art Russian fighters. Plus the effectiveness of weapons like HIMARS and Javelins.

Anyhow the F-35 is a bit of a dog in the air, not particularly fast nor manoeuvrable nor anything really but it incorporates state of the art technology and fires state of the art missiles. That alone makes it deadlier than anything China or Russia can field.

There's some discussion in the comments on this, essentially that the F in F-35 is political rather that practical, and that a B or an A would be more approprate in many senses.

The case is every US partner who purchase F35s is now dependant on US and more aligned with US interests. That remains true even if magic anti-air missile tech makes F35s vunerable in the coming years because broad adoption of F35s also killed gen5+ competitors who couldn't sell at scale. We see Korea, Japan + EU countries trying to restart their own fighter programs now because dependency on US especially with FX can become onerous and they all want their own share of future export pie now that RU arms exports is dimished.

How many “new” partners did the F-35 win over? There are lots of countries using the F-16/18 etc. I think there were even times the US had a conflict where the adversary had US fighters.

Fair point, but IMO increased dependancy is more about joint developement and getting level 1/2/3 partners emeshed into the program's supply chain. Side effect is tying up development resources in partner programs while undermining other competing programs. Hollowing out foreign competitors also benefits F16/18 exports due to lack of viable gen4/4.5 alternatives. Maybe that was inevitable due to US tech leadership, but I think the geoeconomics is a big reason why F35 is "successful" regardless of technical merits. At minimum DRM means US won't ever fight adversary F35s.

Anti stealth air to air isn't really magic and the DoD itself foresaw stealth no longer being a decisive advantage against peers by 2025. It's just a matter of a larger, lower wavelength phased array radar in an integrated air defence system and a dual-mode preferably imaging seeker on the missile itself.

Then there is also the issue that it's now viable to track airplane from geostationary orbit (really) and to deploy satellite swarms in low earth orbit which will probably be applied to air defence within a decade if it's not already done.

Exaggerating for effect, but I think the tech you described for most nations relative to developement capabilities is basically magic, and most F35 partners will be relatively secure in their back yards. Realistically we're talking about PRC assembling those pieces together (especially Jilin/Gaofen tier space infra) in short/medium term. I've doubts they plan to export the system, except perhaps to MENA. Hence I think geoeconomics of F35 program is a huge success despite technical / future proofing merits, that likely won't be issue outside of peer warfare for decades. Concern of course is we might have peer warfare sooner.

While this is true, China exporting these is not outside of the question (theres even been talking of exporting the J-31), and I don't forsee China being the only country to do this - I'd imagine in the medium term India to develop similar technology to counter China and to try to resell it.

Another thing about satellites is that you could plausibly sell them as a service, much like US AWACS and semi-commercial satellite imagery in Ukraine.

At the same time, the F-35 itself is still not a finished product, it's still missing many of its core features such as full sensor networking and it's unlikely to ever be fully integrated at this pace (which the article doesn't mention - the software side of the F-35 program is still a disaster that doesn't seem to be improving as much as promised. Recently there's been chit chat about dependency hell and spaghetti code and the inability to even integrate new weapons platforms without breaking other subsystems)

Beyond this, it's not clear that the F-35 represents that much of a leap against non-peer opponents.

I'd say technically the program is still an overall success, but it's not really clear that it provides anything like a decisive advantage in any plausible situation.

> Yes, it may cost $1.5 trillion over the next 50 years, but that’s the entire program cost, including R&D, procurement, operations, maintenance and sustainment. This is a number that is only really relevant before the program has begun, when you’re using it to compare the cost of multiple ways of accomplishing the same goal.

Isn’t that double of the original projected cost? Also this statement reads like a textbook example of sunk cost fallacy. The aircraft is just ramping up production, not all bugs have been worked out so it is not know that the rest of its operational life will incur maintenance costs only.

To the extent it is sunk cost fallacy, you've got a similar problem when comparing it against prior aircraft.

Is argue this is an apples to apples comparison.

With 800+ produced, most of the modern fighters don't reach half of that number, like Rafale, Su-34/35 or J-16.

The F15 has more than double the combat range of the F35. They are pulling the F15 out of Okinawa, and there is no way the F35 can replace it. It lack the range, among other things.

The F15 can carry way more ordinance than the F35.

The F35 was claimed to be able to do what the F15 does and it is not even close in many areas. Sure, the F35 can do more in some cases, but it cannot replace what the F15 does.

The A10 is similar. They claimed the F35 could perform that role, and there's no way anyone in their right mind would put an F35 in as close air support for troops on the ground. The A10 can also carry a wider array of ordnance, and a lot more ordance than the F35.

Both the F15 and A10 cost a lot less per hour to operate, and have much higher availability than the F35.

Do we need the F35? Probably. But it is not a replacement for other aircraft that are much more suitable in more situations.

What we really need are a large number of light fighter/attack aircrat like the S Korean FA50, with a smaller number of F15/F16/F18 type aircraft, and then a very few F22/F35s.

While the F-15C does have more range than the F-35, the F-35 has more payload. The F-15E does have more payload, but that's a twin seat fighter-bomber that leans more towards the "bomber" part and isn't directly comparable

The A-10 is, frankly, a terrible close air support platform. Its only advantages are lower cost per hour and the fact that by being low and slow it's more visible to grunts on the ground. However, it's slower to respond to CAS requests; more vulnerable to MANPADs which the F-35 can simply fly over and radar-guided SAMs that the F-35 can avoid with stealth; and lacks modern electronics like the F-35's electro-optical sensor suite (aka cameras) making it more likely to cause friendly fire incidents. The gun has been too small to destroy tanks since the T-72, and too big be efficient killing BMPs and trucks, and also requires the plane to come in low and slow in the optimum flight path for getting shot down by MANPADs

For the close air support mission, you're either doing it in contested airspace in which the A-10 is too vulnerable compared to the F-35, or in uncontested airspace where a drone can do the dame job just as well if not better for cheaper

Not to mention that the vast majority of CAS missions by NATO countries over the last 10+ years has been dropping guided munitions from 20000 feet.

Or how 4th gen aircraft range is due to drop tanks, which further decrease their payload.

Or how the US is gearing up for a near peer conflict, in which light attack aircraft are essentially useless due to how vulnerable they are.

edit: The US should probably adopt some light attack aircraft, but for counter insurgency operations. And for something like that, midweight drones with hellfires/brimstones and modern prop planes will be significantly cheaper than even the A-10 or the FA50.

Afghanistan was a NATO mission. A10s were used heavily there.

Not nearly as heavily as you probably think, considering B1s, F-15s, and F16s performed the majority of CAS missions.

Which F-15 would that be?

The F35 can be anywhere a carrier or LHD can be though.

“In a lot of ways, this post is a few years too late. Most prominent military procurement programs go through three phases, at least in the public discourse. Early on, they are miraculous, and will solve all problems. They’re cheaper than what we have now, and far more capable. Then, as they come closer to entering service, problems show up, and the media turns on the program. It’s now the worst thing ever, behind schedule, over budget, and useless compared to what it’s supposed to replace if not actively dangerous to our brave troops. Lastly, these problems get resolved, and it becomes a perfectly normal, if imperfect, weapons system, eventually celebrated as a fine example of American engineering, and the benchmark against which the next system will be measured.”

Human pilots were already rapidly being phased out during the era of The Right Stuff (50s and 60s). It's impossible for me to believe manned fighter jets can compete with drones on a financial or tactical level.

The per-unit cost of the F-22 was substantially more than the F-35, yet the F-35 is everybody's favorite whipping boy while the F-22 gets nothing but praise from the same crowd. And I think there is a general awareness of F-22 production ending due to expense, so it's not as though the F-22 is wrongly perceived as being cheap.

I think the discrepancy in public perception comes down to physical appearances. The F-22 looks lean and mean, while the F-35 looks lumpy and frumpy. Physical appearance is the way most laymen judge jets. Ugly jets which are nevertheless popular have some other dramatic attribute which which offsets their appearance, like the A-10's autocannon.

There are 800+ F-35s and just under 200 F-22s. Of course the per-unit cost is higher. That doesn't mean anything other than the politics surrounding each was different, so fewer were ordered of one than the other. The programs cost about the same.

The F-35 was designed to cover use cases for the navy, Air Force and Air Force. That almost certainly contributed to the greater production and justifies the argument that the additional design and development cost of developing such a flexible design would be offset by the greater need and use. Which is the crux of the questions surrounding the F-35.

Want the F-22 designed for narrower scenarios, and so part of the other is we'd never need as many?

The original order was for 750 airframes, so not likely. The main reason production ended completely is that the contract didn't allow for export (unlike the F-35) and the sole buyer stopped ordering planes.

750 is the narrow role in the US military, for strictly air superiority fighter. They want like 2500 F-35 eventually.

Autocorrect shames me.

"Wasn't the F-22 designed for narrower scenarios, and so part of the problem is we'd never need as many?"

> nothing but praise from the same crowd

It’s always the same. Go into the newspaper archives and you’ll see article after article how bad the F-16 and F-15 are, way too expensive, perform badly, too complicated, too much electronics. Same for the F-22.

There is a kernel of truth in what you say, but only that. The article is basically right, but I would argue severely undersells the atrocity of an acquisition the F-35 represents. It's certainly a poorer dogfighter than the equivalent level of technology applied to developing a top-level dogfighter (like an upgraded F-22), and is truly ungainly. None of that is at odds with it also being an unparalleled capability.

The biggest challenge in any dialogue about the F-35, like NASA's SLS, is that it's hard to separate how one feels about the acquisition itself vs. the end product. If you're a mission planner, you want the F-35's capabilities and you don't care about the ugly history of how the capability became available. If you're a taxpayer, you should be angry at how poorly managed the F-35 program was and the profligate sunk costs. Any attempt to collapse judgment about the F-35 onto a single axis will lead to low-quality discussions.

One can validly be wary that exalting the capabilities will lead to future acquisitions which learn no lessons from the F-35 because in the end, everyone will just praise the delivered capability after you weather the storm. From my vantage point in DoD aerospace, there is certainly a widespread recognition of the baggage associated with the F-35.

One thing is for certain - wishing they would just stop all production and start over is pure fantasy. There is too much commitment and reliance on these aircraft being in the force mix across many nations. It's not going to happen.

Is dogfighting relevant in todays world of NLOS missiles?

Current military thinking is "No" - the expectation, via lots of simulation, analysis, recent history, large-scale military exercises, and intel is that advanced weapons systems make dogfighting increasingly unlikely. Where it does happen, capability aspects other than pure kinematic superiority will make a big difference. And before anyone smugly reminds us all of Vietnam, they should refresh themselves on the lessons learned from the '91 Gulf War.

Not to mention in Vietnam, the Navy F4s that didn't have guns (and usually didn't bother with gun pods) were way more successful than the Air Force (who always flew with gun pods and eventually added an internal cannon to their planes). The issue was that they both (Navy and Airforce) initially only trained against other F4s, instead of against planes that were comparable to what they faced over Vietnam. The Navy setup schools to retrain their pilots to not drop speed to try and line up gun runs, and trained against other US planes that were more comparable to the Russian planes. Eventually the airforce adopted similar training regimes.

Having watched numerous bits of military procurement from the sidelines via reporting over the decades...the problem comes down to the people running the program having no idea WTF they want, and only knowing what they DON'T want after they've received a prototype that fits the constraints they've laid out and realize that no, what they asked for was dumb and not usable or is literally impossible to make with the state of the art.

Go through a few iterations of refinement for them to get their heads out of their asses with something expensive like a new fighter and it's easy to see how the cost has ballooned. However, if they keep funding the program they can work through the right tradeoffs to end up with something that works better than what was before, while maybe not quite hitting the marks that were planned on at the outset.

It just costs $billions of development and years to work through.

Fortunately, Americans are willing to spend hilarious amounts of money on our weapons systems so we can get something useful at the end of the program.

Occasionally we pull the plug because the program was so ill-thought-out that there's no way to salvage it, like with the Zumwalt.

Reminds me of the Bradley IFV procurement.

The F-35 program has been pretty similar

We want an airplane that's stealthy! And modular! And can have vertical lift capabilities! That can be swapped out with a laser that doesn't exist! And can be used with a huge internal payload! And is also carrier-capable! And has super-cruise! And still fits an internal gun! And...

That they managed to iterate it into something that could actually be fielded is kind of amazing when you stop and think about it.

Fortunately it can just be explained in one small slide: https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/09/atl_wa...

Counterpoint. F-15 is one of the (if not THE) most successful fighter aircraft ever made and it doesn't look so sleek in my opinion, relatively speaking.

I'm an aerospace engineer and I find the F-15 (esp. the C model) to be a hell of a sexy beast (so to speak), very visually stunning, and the F-35 to be relatively ugly. There's a reason the U.S. fighter community refers to the F-35 as "Fat Amy".

F-15 isn't sleek, but it looks mean and hard. F-16 looks sleek.

There's no need to "make the case" for the F-35 in 2022...the US DoD has already introduced hundreds into service, hundreds more to come, and it is quickly becoming the de-facto choice for NATO and other allies who are in the market for a new fighter (quick rundown: UK, Germany, Israel, and now even Canada is going to buy them, among many others)

The F-35 is set to take the title for "most produced" fighter over the F-16.

Not sure what the point of weighing the merits? Its a done deal

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